I don't mind spiders, on the whole. I like the fat little orb weavers, and the quick little hunting spiders. Even the wolf spiders and the velvet recluses have their place. There's only one spider I really dislike, and that's Pholcus Phalangioides. The cellar spider. You've seen them; I know you have. Like thistle seeds- small, brown cylindrical bodies with legs so fine that they're almost invisible. They hang in the high corners of every house that I have ever lived in.
The first time I tried to kill one, I was twelve. My dad had handed me the vacuum cleaner with the hose attachment and told me to get to it. He lived in the space between my book case and the wall, a space filled with dust and cobweb. As I raised the hose towards him, his small body gyrated in alarm, but I put the end of the hose over him. He struggled, but the vacuum was too much and he was sucked inside. Unnerved, I tried to put the experience aside, and I would've, had he not returned the next day.
He sat there like a bad omen, one leg broken out of kilter, but he had survived. Pholcus Phalangioides, it turns out, are very hard to kill.
The next house I lived in, I tried tissues; balling them up around the little spiders, who were oblivious to their approach, and throwing them away. This proved even less useful, and more than once I witnessed one of them pull its slightly squashed body from my bin.
What I needed, I realised, was containment.
I borrowed a big old glass mason jar from my grandfather's shed; the type with a lid that clips down. It was simple, in theory. I would trap the spiders and put them in the jar where they could not escape. No longer would they return, squished and baleful, to my corners and crevices.
The first few captures went as planned. I would ball up the little bastards and throw them in, they would escape from the tissues, but remain in the jar, their translucent bodies still and silent.
It was after the first half dozen that things got strange.
The spiders began to dance.
At first it was only one; one of the bigger ones, rocking back and forth in its spot on the glass, but soon the others joined him. I watched as first one danced and then another, each spider waiting its turn. The sight made my stomach churn with dread. They were communicating.
I resolved to get rid of the jar that night. What had I been thinking, keeping them around? I put on a pair of gloves and carried it out to my car. Strapped it in on the front passenger seat and put my shovel in the back. I couldn't afford to just throw the jar away- anything that might break the glass. The spiders would find their way back. They stopped their dancing, momentarily, as I parked up outside the local wood and lifted the jar from the seat.
"Well," I said, tucking the jar under one arm as I got the shovel out. "I guess this is goodbye."
As one, the spiders bobbed rapidly. Frantically, like the one I had caught in the vacuum cleaner when I was twelve. Was this how they screamed, I wondered. I dug the hole good and deep, and lowered the jar carefully to the bottom before shovelling dirt over it. I packed the earth over it and covered the disturbed patch with leaf litter, so as to discourage any enterprising treasure hunters. By the time I was finished, my hands were slick with sweat, and shaking. From exertion, of course. I looked over the grave site a final time. It had become very dark.
And above me, in the canopy, a rustling sound, like a large pigeon might make. And a familiar rocking motion.
